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Metro Squad investigates killing of Raytown man

For the 60-year-old longtime Raytown resident, that meant jogging daily to prepare to join relatives this summer to climb Aspen Mountain in Colorado.

He was doing that Sunday morning when a gunman leaned out of a passing sedan and fatally shot Stone in what police believe was a random, unprovoked drive-by shooting.

On Monday, 18 members of the Metro Squad convened to investigate. They hope witnesses will step forward.

“We have no motive, no reason for this. It was just a senseless, random act,” said Kansas City Detective Tom Prudden, Metro Squad spokesman. “Whether it was a dare or an initiation or somebody trying to prove their street cred, I don’t know.”

Police said Stone was found just after 7 a.m. sprawled in the grass near 67th Street and Blue Ridge Boulevard, less than a mile and a half from his home.

Minutes earlier, police say, a dark, four-door sedan pulled up alongside Stone. A passenger fired several shots before the vehicle sped west on 67th Street.

Emergency crews rushed Stone to a hospital, where he later died.

“If they (the shooter) are just willing to pull up and randomly shoot somebody innocently jogging down the street, obviously there was no forethought that went into their victim,” he said. “It could have been anyone.”

At a Monday press conference, Susan Li called her father’s sudden death “ubiquitously terrible.”

“Harry Stone was a proud father and grandfather. He was a loving husband and an affectionate brother and a gentle soul,” Li said. “ The loss of him in our lives is immeasurable but so, too, is the pride he left.”

Li said her father was born in Lafayette County, Mo., but was a lifelong resident of the Kansas City area. He graduated from Central Missouri State University and enjoyed the outdoors, working out and spending time with his family. A veteran marathon runner, he had hoped to run another one soon.

“He was always in preparation for the next big physical activity,” she said. “He took great pride in his physical well-being.”

Investigators urged people with information to call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477) or the Metro Squad at 816-737-6029.

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